Liturgy

SACRAMENT PROGRAM

Is your child in Years 3, 4, or 6?"Parents - it is your privilege and responsibility, which follows from your commitment when your child was baptised, to present your child for the sacraments."

Enrol in your ParishThe latest information from some of our local parishes is provided below. Further information is on the College website which is updated regularly.

Local ParishesSome of the local parishes have supplied the following information regarding Sacrament Programs.

PARISH OF ST MARY STAR OF THE SEA, COTTESLOESacraments enrolling nowRegistration Forms are available here. Please complete a form to bring to the registration session.

PARISH OF HOLY SPIRIT, CITY BEACHIf you want your child to celebrate the sacrament, but have not yet enrolled, please contact one of the following people immediately.CONTACTS:
Fr Emmanuel-tv Dimobi at fremmanueltv@hotmail.com or 9341 3131
Cathy Gawen, Catechist Coordinator at delattrecn@yahoo.fr or 0451 951043
Benna Masbate, Sacrament Coordinator at benelle1@yahoo.com or 0488 998651.

FAQs

I have missed the enrolment date in my parish? What should I do?Make contact with your Parish Priest or Sacrament co-ordinator. In some cases, it may still be possible to accommodate late applicants. Parishes may need to order materials or specific items - so you need to let them know as soon as possible.

I am not sure to which parish we belong. How can I find out?The new website for the Archdiocese of Perth is very user friendly. Go to the drop down for Parishes and Masses, then find your parish by suburb, arranged alphabetically.

The parish sacrament programs are not identical. Does that matter?Not at all. Under the guidance of the Parish Priest, each parish is unique and offers the Sacrament Program within the context of their parish community.

My parish insists on children attending classes. Isn't the content covered in the Religion curriculum at John XXIII College?The Primary Curriculum at John XXIII College includes, for each year level, the relevant sacrament unit content, viz: Year 3 - Reconciliation; Year 4 - Eucharist; Year 6 - Confirmation. Because each parish is unique, they will prepare for and celebrate the sacraments uniquely.

I don't see my parish listed above.As a regional school, our College is enriched by families from many parishes, not all of them close by. Information for all parishes may be found on the archdiocesan website.
Further information is on the College website which is updated regularly or email Mary-Anne Lumley or phone on 9383 0513, Parish Liaison.

'GOOD NEWS' for 5th Sunday in Lent

"Let the person without sin be the first to throw a stone."(John 8:1-11)

The reflection is from Fr Richard Leonard's homily on this Sunday's gospel and is printed here, with kind permission. Fr Richard Leonard SJ is the Director of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting, is a member of the Australian Catholic Media Council and is author of Preaching to the Converted, Paulist Press, New York, 2006.

There is a tough phrase at the end of this Sunday's Gospel: 'Go and sin no more.' It's like a sting in the tail, standing in contrast to the compassion of Jesus in his encounter with the woman. Yet, on closer inspection, it is the most important phrase in the story. And that's saying something because this dramatic event is the only one in the Gospel where Jesus confronts sexual sin, where only the woman is dragged from the scene of the crime to answer the charge of adultery. Is it any wonder that in some early manuscripts of John's Gospel this story was left out, its authorship questioned? The dangerous memory of Jesus' compassion toward the woman was too strong in the minds of John's community for it to be excluded, however, and so it remains as an inspired text for us to make our own. It is sometimes very important to hear Jesus say to us, especially in the area of our sexuality, 'I do not condemn you.'

So often, however, we want Jesus to leave it at that. But Jesus goes further. He tells it as it is. If any of us want life and want it to the full, we have to stop doing the destructive things that get us into trouble in the first place. It does not matter if it is drinking, gambling, eating, working, stealing, sexual dysfunction, being into pornography, being violent at home or any other type of obsessive compulsive behaviour, there is little point in being sorry for the consequences of our weaknesses and not changing the pattern of behaviour that leads us to ruin each time.

Twelve step programs enshrine the wisdom of today's Gospel in how they help us to own up to the destructive behaviour of our lives and yet give us hope to live beyond our worst moments.

Steps four to ten say:
Step 4. I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.
Step 5. I have admitted to God and to another the exact nature of my wrongs.
Step 6. I am entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7. Humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings.
Step 8. Made a list of all persons I had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible except where to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when I was wrong promptly admitted it.

The thing I like best about these is that they are pro-active. They alert us to the fact that the best pathway to know healing and forgiveness is not to be passive, but to be active and admit our own faults and work to heal them. Some of us may have been given a tough hand from life's deck of cards, but we do not have to be passive victims, never able to changes the cycles of destructive behaviour. If the steps work and we trust today's Gospel then we can be happy, healed and forgiven because we heal and forgive others.

Jesus bestows great dignity on the woman by saving her from being condemned to death, but even more so he knows that it does not have to be like this and so challenges her to turn her life around.

May we hear the same challenge in this final week of Lent. No matter what we have ever done, sexually or otherwise, we are greater than our worst moments. Jesus loves us enough not to condemn us, but to give us the sacrament of the Eucharist so that we might find the strength and hope to stop doing the things that destroy us and to live a life that leads to peace and joy.

COMMUNITY MASS

NB early start at 7:30am!

Next Friday 18 March, our community celebration of the Eucharist will commence with a procession of palms from the Library Courtyard. Assemble near the St Ignatius sculpture by 7:30am. As always, our Friday Mass is open to all members of our College community.If you are new, just come along to the Chapel - there are no reserved seats and all responses are on a Powerpoint. Mass finishes at 8:30am and the celebration continues in the café afterwards for those able to stay.

In this preparation time for Easter, the Church gives us rich Scripture texts which merit more than one reading. Many people find that celebrating Friday Community Mass helps them enter more deeply into their Parish Mass at the weekend.